The Power of We

August 9, 2004
The CEO of Loews Hotels, Tisch preaches a management philosophy of cooperation: forging partnerships with employees, customers, shareholders and communities. A skeptical reader will ask what kind of partnership leaves the author heir to a $21-billion fortune while most of his employee-partners make less than $21,000 per year; the author addresses this question head-on, leaving the executive suite and performing the entry-level jobs in Loews hotels: cleaning, cooking, serving, repairing and checking guests in. The difficulty of these jobs reinforces "how crucial it is for top management to give the front-line people the tools, resources, and freedom they need to carry out their demanding jobs." He also confronts a union-busting reputation with a set of arguments for and against organized labor. The result is inspiring as an account of the way businesses should be run, but not entirely convincing as an account of the way Loews is actually run: Tisch describes at length how uncomfortable and humiliating the front-line employee uniforms are—but he doesn't consider changing them because they are cheap to launder. Accounts from other executives who practice partnership management argue strongly for the ideas; this book as a whole gives explicit examples and recipes for applying them with an entertaining mix of analysis and stories.

September 1, 2004
Tisch is chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, which also has sizable interests in the insurance, sports, and tobacco industries. This family business has been extremely successful, in large part a result of the partnerships they have forged--with employees through recognition and rewards, with customers by delivering a unique entertainment experience, and with other businesses and government through promotion of tourism. In June 2003, Tisch spent a week in the "front lines" working as a bellman, waiter, engineer, and housekeeper. His experience gave him new respect for the difficulties his staff endured; he found the polyester room-service uniforms so uncomfortable he decided to change them. Besides detailing how cooperative efforts work in the hotel business, he also profiles the partnership successes of others, such as JetBlue Airways CEO David Neeleman, former president Jimmy Carter and the Carter Foundation, and Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment. Tisch proves that companies ultimately reap great benefits by looking beyond the bottom line to the needs of people and community.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)